


What plagues the heart

by TheBlazeCal



Series: Finished Taskpool stories [23]
Category: Deadpool - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, h/c, tw: Wade's suicidal tendancies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-13 07:31:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11179986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBlazeCal/pseuds/TheBlazeCal
Summary: A battered, starved Wade shows up on Tony's doorstep. So there is little choice for Tony then to let in this friend he can't stand, the things one does for friends.





	What plagues the heart

Yelling, fighting, betrayal,...

It was the life of a mercenary, the life of the Taskmaster, it does things to the way you see people. A liability, everything is a risk, some calculated, some unexpected. Tony refrained from yelling most of the time, found it a sign of weakness, emotion. 

A weakness he seemed to be determined to show around Wade. The “friend he can't stand” known as Deadpool, the only one he couldn’t seem to push out of his life. He had given up on lasting relationships after they had used his partner against him, shooting her to distract him. So he had insulted Wade, had stolen some of his jobs, flat out sold him out…

Yet Wade didn’t leave, never for long anyway. Now here he was again, dressed in civies, standing in the doorway of Tony’s training facility, looking starved, dirty, and desperate. Somehow it was usually him Wade seemed to turn to, for all the things he did with his bleeding heart, it seemed no one actually wanted him around.

“What ha-” he stopped himself from asking, simply shaking his head a little, “I don’t want to know, come on in, there is leftovers in the fridge.” 

“Thanks Barney.” Wade came in dumping a clattering duffel bag next to the doorway as he went inside like he owned the place now that he was given permission. It made something inside of Tony snap in emotions he would deny he had.

“I. AM. NOT. CALLED. BARNEY.” 

If Wade had even heard him, he hadn’t acknowledged it, instead the man dove into the fridge piling up food on the counter next to it, already putting stuff in his mouth while still choosing. Wade was clearly starving, so Tony guessed he had been doing a whole lot of healing.

“Why are you out of your suit, pizza face?”

“You know that insult ain’t funny right?” 

Tony strode to Wade’s side, his hand pulling Wade's hood down revealing his extremely scarred head, he could spot every little difference in the scar patterns, it was oddly mesmerising.

“I find it as funny as you insisting on calling me Barney.” 

“Fine, skull face.”

Tony let his gloved fingers touch Wade’s head, feeling the texture before turning it in a condescending pat on the starving man’s head. Not able to ignore how Wade just kept shovelling food down what started to seem a bottomless pit.

“So, you here for a job? Or to freeload? Or was there something you wanted?”

“Freeloading, have you ever known me to do anything else?”

“Besides trying to kill me… or ask me to train you when you decided not to kill yourself after losing your healing factor for a while…”

Wade looked up at him, chewing with his mouth almost open, adding to Tony’s disgust as he spoke, or at least tried to. It sounded like “true” but with Wade you never knew and the flying bits of food as Wade attempted to speak it made Tony avert his gaze.

“Fine, you get the couch in my private quarters, don't turn it in a dump this time.”

 

Wade still hadn’t put on his suit or mask a few days later, for some reason this worried Tony more than a Wade who was in permanent Deadpool mode. Maybe because it was easier to insult Deadpool without feeling like a to-

Tony sighed at his own thoughts, interrupting their stream, he wanted so badly to push this man out like everyone else. However, part of him was enjoying the way he couldn’t get rid of Wade.

“So, how come I gotta look at yer u-” Tony froze as Wade looked up at him, blue eyes clouded- “Your face.”

Wade watching him like this, it did things to Tony. It felt both like Wade wasn’t seeing him, but at the same time was seeing right through him. 

“Do you find me repulsive?”

Tony blinked confused; once, twice. His mind churning the question,  Wade’s hygiene and eating habits for sure, but, was Wade really asking about that?

“Your smell usually is, also the way you eat, like damn it don’t shovel food in like you’re trying to choke in i-” 

Wade’s laughter interrupted him, it was a sad laugh, but somehow it also sounded relieved.

“You  know… why bother taking care of myself? If everyone pushes me away for how I look, it's easier to not be approa-”

“Bullshit,” Tony glared at Wade. Quickly leaning to his level locking eyes through the lenses of his mask, “you break all the rules, yet when people tell you you are disgusting you don't fight it? You decide to embrace it? I never took you for a coward, Wilson.”

Wade's yaw twitched at Tony's words, the condescending lean towards him, the ever so superior fucking attitude. Before he realized it he launched a punch at the word coward, his knuckles making contact with the reinforced temple of Tony’s mask.  

Tony didn’t budge, even though he felt part of the shock and he was seeing a bit blurred now, he refused to show it. Instead he grasped the collar of Wade’s hoodie with both hands.

“I don’t think you look disgusting, pizza face, though you try my patience acting like a fucking kid. You're a pro, act it.” 

“If I am the purposely dirty kid to keep the bullies away, you are the bully to hide your own weakness.”

Tony let go of Wade’s hoodie only to punch him in the gut as hard as he could before jumping back as he glared at the one-and-a-half Wade Wilsons he was seeing. Seething with rage as so often around Wade, but as usual not for Wade but for himself for failing, failing to predict Wade, failing to escape Wade’s observations. 

“At least I am not different people at once,” the sneer was out before Tony realized and a dark shadow crept on Wade’s face as he looked up from being clenched inwards for his stomach.

“Are you even one person, Taskmaster?” 

“Get out of my sight…” he pointed at the door of his private quarters, “You can go to the empty student wings…” 

Wade got up slowly, grabbing his bag as he dragged himself towards the door. There however he halted, “The fact that you don't kick me out proves I am right. You don’t know if you are...”

Tony threw the nearest object at the closing door, not wanting to accept what Wade was saying, dropping on his couch tiredly the moment he was alone. He didn't want to admit it, but Wade had seen right through him, he was bits and pieces of other people and had long since forgotten who he was after playing so many roles, stealing so many lives.

 

Wade and Tony were successful at avoiding each other for a whole day, Tony could have forgotten Wade was even there if he hadn’t kept an eye on him on his security system like the paranoid idiot he was.

Tony nearly got a heart attack when Wade stepped out of the shadows of the doorway as he returned from his morning run the following day. 

No. Not Wade. Deadpool, all suited up and ready for well just about anything it seemed, Tony hadn’t smelled him for a change, so he guessed it was either a new suit or Wade had discovered that Tony had a laundry room. 

“What do you want?”

“A job, I am getting restless.” 

Tony grabbed his towel from the side table in the hall, wanting to wipe his sweat, but refusing to unmask in front of this fellow mercenary.

“What makes you think I got jobs lined up?”

Deadpool leant in his line of sight with an overly cheerful grin that always made Tony’s skin crawl. This part of Wade was the loudest, silliest, but also the most ruthless. 

“You are  **The Taskmaster** , you always got jobs lined up.” 

“You want a job? Bake me pancakes and get out of my way.” Tony said coldly, refusing to be intimidated in his own home, it's not that he didn’t have dozens of jobs to spread among some of his graduates, with a few that would be suited for Deadpool. Something was off and he didn’t want to risk it.

“I am not your maid,” Deadpool’s hoarse voice came from behind Tony, who detested having someone there, but refused to let it show.

“It’s that or nothin’ Pool,”  he looked back over his shoulder at the super soldier reject that could oh so easily kill him, “Besides, maids are clean.”

Tony walked away from a shocked Deadpool as he made his way into the kitchen grabbing his coffee and sitting down with it watching the kitchen door to see if Deadpool would do it or not. 

It took two cups of coffee, but Deadpool did show up wearing a kiss-the-cook-apron. Tony rose an eyebrow at the addition over the suit, but didn't say anything as he watched the prep of the pancake batter.

Deadpool did so while singing annoying songs or just ranting meaningless stories or even having discussions with himself.

“Why did you come to me?” Tony interjected the annoying madness before it would drive him mad. 

“B’cuz I know I can get work through you.” 

“You've been staying here for nearly a week and have only asked for a job now.”

Deadpool simply put a pan on the fire at that seemingly pretending not to have heard him. Which made a small twitch form in Tony's right eye, internally counting to ten, two times.

“I won’t give you a job if you are unstable, you fail it is my ass that is discredited.”

“And I care because?”

“I clearly seem to be the only person you don't have to take hostage to keep letting you stick around…”

“No idea what you are ta-”

“Pool, I put a hit on your head did you really think I didn’t check in every aspect of where you could scurry to? I know about Althea, just like I knew Weasel was your weapons guy when I tried to hire him and we got our first meeting.”

“Is that a threat?” 

Tony simply drank his third cup of coffee looking at the darkened masked face, a smirk playing behind his cup, there was a certain amusement on setting Deadpool on edge, to unlock the silent serious side, the pro, not the blabbermouth. Beyond that though, there was the satisfaction that he could get under his skin just as much as the other got under his.

“I haven’t tried to kill you in … months? Besides I much prefer going after someone who can defend themselves at least,” Tony poured his fourth cup of coffee as he watched Deadpool flip the pancake he was working on absently.

“You asked me if I was even one person last time…”

Tony hesitated, hiding it by sipping from his coffee as he felt the full focus of those white covered eyes burn on him. 

“I am, I go by Tony Masters, if you insist on using a more civilian name you can use that, instead of Barney.” 

“A name does not make a person.” 

“It’s all you are getting out of me, now pass me those pancakes I am hungry.”

 

The next couple of days they had an awkward truce, Wade made breakfast, Tony made dinner and they barely exchanged any words outside of insulting banter. 

Though as time passed with them living together like this they both seemed to be more relaxed around each other, Wade would casually slip from Deadpool to Wade Wilson and back through the days, Tony found himself entertained by his odd company more than he felt annoyed. 

“How can you sit still like that for over an hour without falling asleep?”

“It's called meditation, channeling your energy towards certain goals. Like faster healing for example.”

“So you are trying to heal faster?”

“No, I am trying to get some focus and peace of mind,” Tony muttered those words, not needing to open his eyes to feel his company circle him restlessly. He could feel the shifts in the air around him as well as the subtle scent of decay that came with Wade's body killing and healing him all the time. 

“How is that working out for you?” 

Tony could strangle Wade just for the sing-song tone he was using as he no doubt was trying to see how long it would take for him to blow. So he simply ignored him till he got too close to his back to which he grabbed his wrist and twisted it so hard it threw Wade on the floor in front of him. Only then did he open his eyes at the almost mocking ‘ouch’.

“Wonderfully,” he sounded even drier and sarcastic than usual as he looked at the half masked, half revealed face that stared up at him from the ground. 

“Good, I’d hate to bother you,” Wade's cheeky grin and comment made Tony squeeze the wrist harder than he had been, pinning Wade’s other hand down as well when he moved it to free himself. 

“You’d never bother me, right?” Tony had no idea what he was even thinking, Wade was no Spider-man when it came to strength, but he did have super human strength, few army experiment mutatees lacked that quality. 

“Wouldn't dare.”

Tony didn’t know what game they were playing, with Wade you never knew. 

However there were things tumbling around in his chest and head that had no business being even remotely near what they were. Tony had no reason to be excited, or shy about any of this, he had no reason to see Wade as anything but a liability. Hell, Wade was at the top of his will-kill-me-or-get-me-killed-list, followed closely by Alex, Bullseye, Elektra, Outlaw, and Frank Castle.

“You still want to work, got the perfect gig for you, pay is decent,” Tony let go of Wade’s wrists and the moment was over. 

Wade scrambled to stand up as Tony gracefully got up and pulled out his smart phone showing the job request. The sooner Wade was back on his feet on the open job market the sooner he could get back to his life, pretending not to care about anything or anyone. 

 

“What the hell Task! I am not going back, you hear me! I don't know what they are paying you! But I will kill you if you come after me!”

Tony blinked confused at the screamed voice mail message from Wade during the night, around the time he should be pulling the job. His mind trying to make sense of the message and accusation. 

He was quite certain that this job had not been a setup, he had worked for this employer for years. Tony couldn’t understand what was going on at all, which wasn't unusual for interactions between Wade and himself. Yet this one was weird even for Wade.

So he put on his suit, tucked his cape in the compartment of his motorcycle putting a motorcycle jacket and a black helmet on before he made his way to the job sight.

There was no sign of Wade still being there, but boy were there signs of him having indeed been there. Security had doubled, part of it being police officers, since he last staked this place out to check the difficulty level of the job. 

More than that though, while Tony used some tech to be able to hear better he could hear them discuss a raging lunatic that had come out of nowhere near the testing labs. 

Wade had had no business in the testing area of the facility for the job, but hadn't been the first time he would have gotten side tracked during a job. Now Tony was curious though, what could he have seen that spooked him like that. 

It was quick work to grab one of the cops and use his image inducer to take his place, getting inside like that was easy, so he could explore the place under the guise of doing a security sweep. 

When he was near the testing labs he saw a nurse and walked up to her firmly, “Excuse me, I am just checking if we have everyone’s official statement yet, such a big facility it's easy to miss some people.”

“There is nothing new I can tell you officer, this… lunatic in a red and black costume just appeared out of nowhere, screaming and yelling and trying to ‘release’ our volunteer human test subjects while raging on and on.”

“Was there anything that stood out to you in his rambling?”

“Yeah, he kept yelling how he wouldn’t go back, as well as something called Weapon-X”

That was all Tony needed to hear, so he thanked her for her cooperation and continued his “patrol”. When he got into the development area he changed his inducer image to one of the doctors, he had passed in the hallway, using a camera blindspot. 

After that grabbing the samples and the research was almost child’s play, focused on finishing the job first Tony contacted his employer and delivered the goods the next day, in return he saw quite a bit of money added to his bank account.

However Tony had a long day and night ahead of him, everything he had ever had on the Weapon X program was superficial, he knew it was a shared project between Canada and the USA to create super soldiers to send into battle. 

He knew Wade had once been part of this project, but that was about it, it hadn’t felt relevant to dig further into. Not when he had done his research to place a hit on Wade. Come to think of it, the chick he had hired, Copycat, was part of Weapon X as well.  

Canada’s security was a lot better than the US so Tony focused on hacking his way in there, sure he was no Tony Stark, but it meant it just took him longer than a few seconds. It took quite a lot of digging, rerouting, and there were several credential blocks. Once he got past the credentials block it was easy to do a directory traversal and get to the hidden Weapon X files.

By early morning Tony had a near complete file on the Weapon X program, which to his surprise still had some facilities, so he made a note to be weary of those locations as a mutant with quite the handy mutation he’d hate to get into their hands.

Wade's file was extensive to say the least, but Tony was tired. Reading it had to wait till he had gotten some sleep. 

 

Tony was horrified by what he read. To a point where even his coffee didn’t taste right. He was absolutely disgusted and he’d done horrible shit to his students through the years. 

To think Wade even returned to the project after escaping. He couldn’t wrap his head around it, Wade had been tricked into it, promised a cure for his cancer.

Then when Wade proved hard to control, which Tony knew first hand, they had send him  to something called the Hospice. Well it used to be, now it was just a pile of rubble.  However the date stood out there, the date it had been turned into rubble was exactly ten years ago today.

Tony left his uneaten breakfast on the table as he grabbed his gear and pretty much bolted to his jet. Not a doubt in his mind on where he would find Wade.

Wade had shown up looking like… he had tried to kill himself... again, most likely. He had been hovering around Tony, maybe hoping he’d be a distraction, but when that wasn’t enough he figured jobs would do the trick. Of course the one job Tony gave him was the worst possible situation for Deadpool.

Tony  eventually landed his jet in a clearing a while away from the ruins of the hospice, walking the rest of the way. Reaching the overgrown ruins of a facility that didn’t exist, sitting in the rubble on his knees was none other than Deadpool, or maybe it was Wade Wilson, with him you could rarely tell.

“Are you going to skulk like that for long?” Tony spoke callously, his boot resting on some of the rubble as he stood at the edge of the facility.  In a way this place was the birthplace of the mercenary known as Deadpool, ten years ago.

“I don’t know are you going to look like Skeletor for long.” 

“It’s not in my benefit to let you skulk yourself into starvation. No matter how annoying you are.”

“Everything has to be in your benefit doesn't it?” 

Tony ignored the accusation from his fellow mercenary, instead he walked into the piles of overgrown rubble calmly, his eyes locked on Wade’s back as he seemingly made no intention to move.

There was something in him that drove him to do this, to reach out to Wade even though the rational part of him reminded him Wade was a liability, someone who made him vulnerable. 

“It’s been ten years since you sacked this place hasn't it?”

“You are pushing your luck here...”

“Ten years since the Deadpool popped up in the mercenary circles…”

There was some twitching going on in Wade's body, like he was torn between crawling into the rubble and lashing out. Tony decided to push just a little more.

“Ten years since you escaped being a lab rat.”

“I swear, if you don't shut up and leave me alone, I am putting some lead between your eyes.”

Tony halted calmly, assessing the situation, Wade had been off grid for over a day, meaning from the look of things that he had probably been here in the rubble for the entire time. He would at the very least be weakened enough to have strength and motion to his level instead of enhanced, probably less endurance to.

“Make me.” 

Wade jumped up and spun around so fast it was almost dizzying to watch for Tony, but he was ready for it, his hand closed around the wrist that had come for him within seconds and his other hand grasped the back of Wade’s neck yanking him close to him.

“You don’t want to be alone,” Tony almost whispered those words as he pulled Wade against him, even though the latter stank. 

“Lemme g-” 

Protest almost instantly switched to surrender. Though Wade freed his captured wrist, his arms wrapped around Tony's body. Wade’s face hidden by the way he pressed himself against Tony.

“Nobody gets it,” Wade’s whisper sounded so soft and lost, so lonely. Tony couldn’t help but wrap his own arms around the man tightly

“I know and they never will, they haven’t lived it.” 

Tony felt Wade’s grip on him tighten to a point where it hurt. He felt like a plush held tight by a terrified child. He didn't complain though as he felt the slight shaking in Wade's body. 

“This sounds so very odd coming from me, but it is okay to let it out Wade, you can't live keeping all that pain bottled up.” 

“Watch me…” 

Tony couldn’t help but chuckle at that reaction, standing there in silence as he held Wade until he felt the vice grip loosen to a point where he could free himself from the bearhug.

"Come on. Let's go home."

"Home?"

"Yeah. Home."

**Author's Note:**

> In the comics these idiots tend to speak with their fists and insults more than anything else. Both always hiding to a point where they can't get anywhere without baiting eachother.


End file.
